1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of drawing instruments and more particularly to a duplicating drawing apparatus that simultaneously creates a duplicate mirror-image copy of a design, graphic or other figure as the user draws it.
2. Prior Art
Devices for creating duplicative geometric shapes, figures, designs and the like are certainly not new in the art. For example, stencils and templates are well known devices made from wood, plastic, or metal which are preformed with designs, patterns or figures that can be traced to form accurate copies of objects, numerals or letters. These devices provide a fast and simple way to create the figures since one need only trace along the edges of the desired figures to reproduce them on a piece of paper.
A more sophisticated tracing type device used to create letters or numerals on a piece of paper is a LeRoy lettering machine which is commonly used by draftsmen to place high quality lettering or numbering on drawings, blueprints and the like. This device generally consists of a bar having preformed letters and numerals indented into it, a stylus which fits in the indentations for tracing the letters, and a series of arms, one of which is equipped with a removable ink cartridge which forms the high quality lettering on the paper. The draftsman simply places the stylus in the desired indented character on the bar and traces it. The motion of the stylus is translated to the other arms of the machine and particularly to the arm containing the ink cartridge which follows the motion to ink the desired character on a piece of paper.
These prior art drawing devices mentioned above have some short comings since these devices are limited in that they can only duplicate those patterns which are already formed on the stencil, template or indented bar. One wishing to draw a free hand drawing would not be able to reproduce the drawing using any of these conventional devices. Therefore, there is a need to create a drawing device which allows one to draw a free hand sketch which can be simultaneously reproduced in exact proportions and detail.